The Muslim Journeys Bookshelf Comes to QCC

Naftab Siddiqui, a Queensborough Community College student, examines a title in the Muslim Journeys Bookshelf, a collection of texts meant to educate Americans about the history and contemporary life of Muslims throughout the world, in April 2013. (Photo by Philippe Theise)

Aftab Siddiqui, a City University of New York student, examines a title in the Muslim Journeys Bookshelf, a collection of texts meant to educate Americans about the history and contemporary life of Muslims throughout the world, in April 2013. (Photo by Philippe Theise)

Submitted for Feature Writing in Spring 2013

Sunlight fills the spacious main gallery of the Kupferberg Holocaust Resource Center and Archives, a modern building that sits on a hill at Queensborough Community College. Rows of black folding chairs fill the middle of the space, and several tall, cube-shaped displays bear images, text, and artifacts from the Nazi era.

Students begin arriving around 1 p.m. on this late April day. Some women wear headscarves, and two men wear pointed, well-trimmed beards. They’re here to attend an event, co-sponsored by the Muslim Student Association, to promote QCC’s acquisition of the Muslim Journeys Bookshelf, a collection of texts, films, and online material compiled by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Library Association.

The event includes a screening of “Koran by Heart,” a documentary about the annual International Holy Quran Competition in Cairo, whose young contestants have attempted to memorize the religious text. They include a girl from the Maldives, a boy from Tajikistan, and a boy from Senegal whose teacher insists that if all Muslims read the Koran, “there would be peace on earth.”

About 20 students watch the film, within a smaller room with a series of wall-mounted panels bearing titles such as “Armenia,” Ukraine,” and “Nanking,” and descriptions of the acts of genocide that took place there. Afterwards, they return to the main gallery for halal pizza and a lecture by Erfan Haque, a student at York College, who recalls his childhood attempt to memorize the Koran, and says that knowing its contents dispels religious doubt and worldly desire.

The Muslim Journeys Bookshelf doesn’t include a physical copy of the Koran, but Sandra Marcus, an assistant professor and the coordinator of library public relations at QCC, placed Arabic and English editions in the glass case, near the library’s entrance, that houses part of the collection, which consists of biographies, histories, and fictional works, some by Muslim authors and others about Muslim subjects.

Its titles include House of Stone, a memoir by the late New York Times Middle East correspondent Anthony Shadid; Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood, a memoir by the Moroccan writer and sociologist Dr. Fatima Mernissi; and Prince Among Slaves, Dr. Terry Alford’s account of Abd al Rahman Ibrahima, a Muslim African and slave in the American South.

Sitting in the library’s offices, Marcus said that there are 125 languages spoken at QCC, and asserted the importance of learning “about the cultural heritage of every group.” She speculated that Haque, who wears a trim beard and a white prayer cap, might get attention in U.S. airports just due to his appearance, and she also spoke of a friend’s son who felt afraid to leave home after the attacks on September 11, 2001.

“Right now in our society, there are some bad things going on as far as attitudes toward Muslims,” Marcus said. “I think it’s important to bring up front that there is an issue.”

According to the NEH’s website, the Bookshelf is intended to “introduce the American public to the complex history and culture of Muslims in the United States and around the world.” But how do Muslim students at QCC view the set of resources so designed?

In front of the administration building, a large, brown structure typical of the campus’s architecture, Haque, Yusuf Ali, and Nafiz Uddin—Ali is a member, and Uddin the president, of the MSA—expressed concern that the collection’s secular works, depending on their content, could misrepresent Islam.

At the suggestion of this reporter, Haque and Uddin walked to the library to see the collection for themselves for the first time. The glass case was locked, so they studied the covers of the volumes.

Dr. Eboo Patel’s memoir, Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation, drew Uddin’s attention. On the cover, Patel, who formerly advised the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships, looks directly at the reader.

“What do you think of this one?” Uddin asked Haque.

Uddin also noticed the images of religious pilgrims on the cover of The Art of Hajj. “You’re not even supposed to have depictions of people with eyes,” he said. “That’s a red flag right there.”

Standing a few feet away, Haque tried to explain Uddin’s response to the books.

“He’s trying to say, ‘If [the author’s] trying to portray a liberal version of Islam, [it’s] his opinion,’” Haque said.

Haque said he would like to read Prince Among Slaves, and that he appreciated the collection’s provision of evidence that “Muslims and Islam did have a role in the history of America.”

“That’s what they’re trying to show,” he said.

Uddin also said that he appreciated the educational value of the Bookshelf. He selected Ingrid Mattson’s The Story of the Qu’ran: Its History and Place in Muslim Life from an open shelf near the case that housed titles including Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, a graphic novel about the author’s upbringing amidst the Islamic revolution in Iran.

And Aftab Siddiqui, another City University of New York student who joined Haque and Uddin in the library, said, “We’re happy that they put this out.”

He mentioned videos on YouTube that cast Muslims as sponsors of terror, and said that the collection could show readers that Muslims are “normal human beings like us.”

Siddiqui’s hope relates to one way that Trikartikaningsih Byas, a professor of English at QCC, starts discussion in her composition courses. In a phone interview on the weekend after the screening and lecture in the resource center, Byas, who covers her head in accordance with her faith and goes by the nickname “Kiki,” said she asks her students this question at the beginning of the semester: “What do you think of having a Muslim terrorist as your professor?”

“Sometimes students get misunderstandings about who Muslims are,” Byas said. “It’s my way of breaking the ice to show them that I have this openness, that they can pretty much express their opinion.”

Byas, who attended the resource center event, has been the Muslim Student Association’s faculty advisor since 2009. She worked with Marcus to prepare an application for the Bookshelf.

She gave several reasons why some Muslim students might look at the Bookshelf with caution. One may be a perceived conflict between secular material and religious practice.

“Being young, they are bombarded by all these things around them, temptation[s] let’s say,” Byas said. “I know that they are trying to get their lives together career-wise while also staying true to their faith.

“When I was their age I experienced similar stuff,” she said. “Now that I’m older, I’m able to distinguish between what I want to do [and] what I want to read.”

Second, because Muslim students are sensitive to how non-Muslims view them and their religion, the Bookshelf is a high-stakes collection.

“They’re worried that the information…will taint the public’s perception of Islam,” she said. “As for me, I worry about that, too, but unfortunately—or fortunately—people will have to make up their own minds.”

Byas said she plans to read at least two books from the Bookshelf over the summer: the Mattson volume that Ddin selected from the shelf, and perhaps Patel’s Acts of Faith. She thinks that more QCC faculty might examine the collection after the end of spring classes.

“It’s important to have this collection on campus,” she said.

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